You’ve got to believe that the new reality-TV series “Teach,” for which Tony Danza taught high school for a year, was less a career stunt for the aging sitcom actor (“Taxi,” “Who’s the Boss?”) than a sincere attempt to become an educator.

A&ETony Danza in 'Teach.'

Why? This series is no less laugh-out-loud unlikely on face than A&E’s other slumming-celeb reality-TV franchise, “Steven Segal Lawman,” which, by the way, returns for a second season of local drinking-game-facilitating at 9 p.m. Wednesday (October 6).

Tony Danza? Teaching sophomore English?

You buy it because the students themselves, who know reality-TV conventions and vocabulary as well as they know anything else in their young lives, would destroy Danza if they sensed even a whiff of camera-clowning at their expense.

You’ve also got to believe that the faculty and administration at Philadelphia’s Northeast High wouldn’t stand for any, either.

Education isn’t a tap-dance.

“(There was) probably a lot of skepticism, because I think when you hear ‘reality,’ it has a certain pejorative connotation to it,” said Danza during the summertime TV Tour in Hollywood. “But I think there was also some excitement involved.

“There were times when I was totally lost. I see myself crying (on camera), saying, ‘I really don’t know if I can do this.’ That really was the overwhelming emotion, that I really had bitten off more than I could chew, that I made a big mistake, that I was going to make a big jerk of myself, and, worst of all, let the kids down.

“The teachers were really good, especially as the year went on. I think once they saw I was serious about it, that it wasn’t just a show, that our production company was very, very, very, very concerned with the kids, with their education, with being unobtrusive, with being a part of the school and yet not being disruptive to the school, I think eventually even some of the skeptics started to come around.”

Danza said that one of his hopes for the series is to elevate the status of teachers in students’ eyes. The kids in his classroom knew him only from 20- and 30-year-old reruns, but they knew enough to know that he’s accordingly wealthier than the teachers they saw the rest of the school day. Danza said he wanted to show them that that didn’t matter.

“One of the problems I think that we have in education is that the teachers, unfortunately, have been so degraded that the kids don’t see them as successes,” he said. “What model do we have of success through education? We’ve got reality stars, and we’ve got rappers, and we’ve got basketball stars, but we don’t have anybody that (students) held up as a model.

“ The kids hear, ‘Those who can, do; and those who can’t, teach,’ they don’t make any money, there’s failing schools and bad teachers. So the kids hear that too, so it puts the teachers at a tremendous disadvantage.

“My first day, one of the kids said to me, ‘Are you a millionaire?’ First of all, I just feel weird about that question anyway. So I said, ‘Yeah, I guess you could say I am a millionaire.’ I said, ‘But I want you to know something. A million is not what it used to be.’”

Midway through the school year, Danza, who at one time earlier in life thought teaching would be a career path, was offered a lead in a Broadway show and a TV series, both of which he turned down. “Teach” probably harms more than helps his acting career.

“I’m not interested in helping my career,” he said. “I wasn’t getting the (acting) offers that I (once had). I smell 60. I’m almost 60 years old. I feel like I should be doing something. I’ve had a great life. My kids are grown. I feel like I should be trying to give something back. We have a terrible problem in this country. We have a 50 percent dropout rate in the inner city -- that’s not at Northeast -- but we have a real problem, and it’s unsustainable, I think. We have to address that. So was there a part of (me saying), ‘I’m not working. Let’s see what else I can do with myself?’ Yes.”

In addition to illuminating the nuances of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and other works of literature in the 10th grade curriculum, Danza said it was also part of his job to teach life lessons as he’s learned them. “Teach,” he said, gave him that opportunity.

“Nobody handed me anything (in life), but I got lucky,” he said. “One of the things I tried to teach the kids right from the beginning was that it was time in the 10th grade to get smart early. Don’t get smart late because not everybody is going to get lucky if you get smart late, especially in our society now. It’s not like you can go out there and not have an education and find a job that’s going to make your life for you. It’s not going to happen. So that was my constant thing.

“I got an e-mail the other day from one of the kids that said, ‘I’m getting smart early.’ I mean, to actually see the words said back to you, it’s wild.”